


Wave a Magic Wand Over This World

by iam93percentstardust



Series: Christmas Movie Challenge 2019 [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, MHEA Holiday 2019, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, just not in that order
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2021-01-16 08:41:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21268199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iam93percentstardust/pseuds/iam93percentstardust
Summary: Look, just because Tony's friends don't like Steve, that doesn't mean that he and Steve don't belong together, right? Sure, maybe they've been arguing a lot and maybe Steve seems kind of judgmental about Tony's drinking, but they're good together....Right?Tony knows that- but maybe he just needs a little reminder.





	Wave a Magic Wand Over This World

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt: When a restless young married Character A is granted a wish by a Christmas Angel to be single again, they soon discover their new life isn’t what they bargained for, and embark on a quest to win Character B back.  
I took a lot of liberty with the prompt but I still had so much fun working on it. Fair note: this one's definitely my least fluffy of the three fics I wrote but it does still have a happy ending.  
Rated M for dark(er) themes  
Title taken from a Norman Vincent Peale quote

“Don’t bring Steve,” Sunset says. “He’s boring.”

“Don’t bring Steve,” Ty says. “He won’t understand.”

“Don’t bring Steve,” Justin says. “He’s holding you back.”

And Tony tries to argue. He _likes _Steve, he wouldn’t have married him if he didn’t. But as it becomes more and more apparent that his friends don’t like Steve and Steve doesn’t like most of his friends (with the exception of Pepper and Rhodey, both of whom live out of the state), he stops asking his husband to come along. He wouldn’t say that it bothers him exactly. He doesn’t expect Steve to ask him to come along when he hangs out with Bucky and Sam (neither of whom much care for Tony) and he knows that spending all of their time together isn’t healthy for their relationship. It’s just that—

Well, it does kind of bother him a bit.

Maybe it’s that, when he goes out with his friends, they spend so much time bashing on Steve. He tells them to stop, and they do for a bit, but then they pick it right back up after Tony’s got a few drinks in him and isn’t entirely thinking clearly and so doesn’t have the wherewithal to tell them to stop again.

Maybe it’s that, most of the time, when he goes back home, Steve easily disproves whatever his friends were saying about him. But sometimes, Sunset says that Steve’s boring and Tony goes home and crawls into bed beside Steve and Steve says that he wishes Tony wouldn’t drink so much. Sometimes, Ty says that Steve won’t understand and Tony looks up from babbling about his thesis to see Steve staring into the distance with glazed eyes. Sometimes, Justin says that Steve’s holding him back and Tony thinks about how his patents and the money left to him by his parents are the only thing keeping them from sinking below the poverty line.

Sure, Tony was the one who had encouraged Steve to leave football behind and go into art. He was the one who’d seen that Steve was miserable playing sports, seen that his passion lay in painting. He was the one who’d urged Steve to quit the team, change his major.

And maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad if they didn’t fight all the time. But they do. Steve and Tony are two very opinionated people, who rarely share the same opinion—at least, not on the important stuff. They’re always on the same wavelength about the important stuff. But they don’t want to eat at the same places or watch the same movies or go to the same places. For god’s sake, they don’t even have the same friends! Isn’t that supposed to be the hallmark of a couple, that they share the same friends? And they’re both so terribly passionate that their differing opinions lead to knock-down, drag-out fights that end in either Steve or Tony sleeping on the couch before the other one gets too lonely in their bed.

They never say that they’re sorry. It’s just not something that they do. Sometimes, Tony wonders if it would be better if they did. But they’re both too proud to admit that they were wrong, so they just say that they’re lonely and they go on from there.

Tony doesn’t even know what set them off this time.

No, that’s not true. He knows exactly what set them off. They’d been decorating the tree. Every year, no matter how busy they are, they always decorate the tree while some sort of Christmas movie plays in the background. They’d left it late this year until Christmas Eve. It had been Tony’s turn to pick the movie, except when he’d turned on _Die Hard_, Steve had groaned.

“_Die Hard_ isn’t a Christmas movie,” Steve had said.

Tony had maybe gotten a little too deep into the eggnog and so he’d childishly insisted, “Is too,” and the fight had gotten worse from there.

Steve had yelled. Steve never yells—he knows how much Tony hates yelling—but he’d yelled today. Tony had flinched, the way he’d always done when people yelled, and the ornament in his hand had dropped from numb fingers and broken neatly into nearly a dozen pieces. It had been one of Steve’s, an ornament from his childhood made by his late mother. Steve had been furious, had accused Tony of taking such good care of everything that belonged to him but never of Steve’s things. It had gotten worse. Steve had raised his hand too quickly, too sharply. Tony knows—he _knows_—that Steve would never hit him but in the heat of the moment, when he was already thinking of Howard, he hadn’t thought. He’d just reacted and so he had flinched back and raised his own hands to protect himself.

The look in Steve’s eyes had gone from fury to horror so fast. He’d started to stammer something out; what, exactly, Tony doesn’t know because he’d fled the apartment.

And now, hours later, he’s sitting in a bar pouring out his sorrows to the bartender, Louis or Lockley or—he peers closer at the nametag—Loki. He feels like he’s burning so he presses his glass, cold from the ice, to his forehead.

“Maybe I made a mistake,” he mutters. “Maybe we moved too fast.”

Loki hums and sets another drink in front of him that Tony promptly knocks back. “Would you do it differently?”

Tony stares at him. “What?”

The bartender gives him a very thin smile. He says more slowly, “If you could do it over, would you do it differently?”

“I heard you the first time,” Tony snaps. He thinks about it. “Yes. Maybe. I don’t know. How do I know it would be better?”

A shrug. “You wouldn’t. That’s the game, I suppose.” He sets one more drink down in front of Tony. Tony goes to grab it like he’s done the last five but Loki catches hold of his wrist. “Don’t drink it yet. You need to think about this. If you tire of that life and wish to come back to this one, you’ll have to find me again.”

He releases Tony’s wrist. Tony grabs instantly for the drink. He doesn’t know what Loki’s talking about and he doesn’t really care. He just wants to forget that the last several hours happened so he tips his head back and swallows the drink in three gulps. It tastes different, burns different, and the way the light caught the liquid was odd but he’s more than a little tipsy by this point and the comparison doesn’t register in his befuddled mind.

Loki’s smiling sharply at him. Tony doesn’t register that either. “So is Loki like a family name or something?” he babbles. “Like the god of mischief, right? What kind of—“

He doesn’t get to finish his question as Loki snaps his fingers and the world dissolves around him.

* * *

Someone is knocking on his front door.

Tony groans and slowly blinks his eyes, immediately throwing his arm over his face. Someone—Steve probably—left the curtains open last night and the morning sun is streaming through the windows. He rolls over closer to Steve’s side of the bed.

“Steve, honey, can you get—" He stops and then props himself up on his elbow. Steve’s not there. In fact, Steve’s entire side of the bed is cold. He sits up further. He doesn’t know this bedspread. Where’s Steve’s mother’s quilt? Did he—is this someone else’s—oh god, he _couldn’t _have.

He throws the sheets off of himself and breathes a quiet sigh of relief that he’s still in his clothes. He takes another look around the room. It’s still his bed, still his dresser, the closet’s still in the far corner, and above him—yep, still the same old water stain. But he’s missing Steve, missing Steve’s things. The quilt’s the first clue but the easel under the window’s gone too and the jewelry box on the dresser. The painting Steve had done of a sleeping college-aged Tony’s been replaced with a photograph of the Brooklyn Bridge.

The knocking on the door gets more insistent. “I’m coming, for fuck’s sake!” he shouts.

There’s a pause before the next knock. Then—“Anthony Edward Stark, that had better not be you!” Pepper yells back.

He strides to the door, ignoring the pain in his head, and flings it open. “Who else would it be?” he asks, completely nonplussed.

Pepper’s all but vibrating with anger. “You _promised _me,” she snaps. “You told me you wouldn’t check yourself out of rehab again.”

That gives him pause. “Rehab?”

“Yes, Tony. Rehab.” She pushes past him and drops a stack of paperwork on his kitchen counter.

He’s still stuck on—“Like rehab rehab?”

She glares at him. “For the third time this year. I get that your ‘friends’ like to go out partying but do you have to go with them?” He can all but hear the air quotes around “friends.” He tries to move on from the rehab thing though he’s still turning it over in his brain. He’d only ever been to rehab once, during the first few months he’d been with Steve. Steve had said it was the scariest moment of his life, seeing Tony in the hospital because he’d given himself alcohol poisoning. Tony had poured every drink in their apartment down the drain the next day and then checked himself into a clinic. He still drinks but it’s nothing like what it used to be. Three times in a year is… a lot and doesn’t make any sense.

He glances at the paperwork. “What’s all this?” he asks, trying not to sound as lost as he feels.

“For the board meeting tomorrow,” Pepper says brusquely.

“Board meeting?”

The angry line between Pepper’s eyes disappears. Her frown now is more concerned than upset. “The end of quarter report?” she asks. “Tony, are you feeling okay?”

He can’t let her know that he has no idea what she’s talking about. “Are you sure I have to be at this meeting?” he asks, brushing off her other question. He thinks it’s a much better idea that he stays home tomorrow and try to figure out what’s going on.

Pepper snorts. “You’re the CEO. Yes, you have to go.”

That can’t be right. He’s not the CEO of anything. He’s a grad student, living off of what little bit of money his parents left him after they died until he can get access to his trust fund. He’d let Stane take SI in return for being left alone for the rest of his life.

“Oh. And why are you dropping off my paperwork?” he asks, hoping it’s not a weird question.

Pepper frowns again. “How much did you drink last night? It’s my job, come rain or shine or even Christmas.”

It’s Tony’s turn to frown. “I made you work on Christmas?”

“It’s okay,” she assures him though the twist to her mouth says otherwise. “Not like I have anywhere else to be.” She straightens the stack on his counter. “Those need to be signed by tomorrow. Will that be all, Mr. Stark?”

This, at least, he knows. Obviously, it means something different in this world—universe—whatever. But back home it’s an inside joke. “That’ll be all, Miss Potts.”

She bows her head and starts to go.

“Pepper,” he says suddenly. “What happened to Steve?”

“Steve? Do I need to track someone down for an NDA?” she asks.

He shakes his head. “No. Sorry. Why don’t you take the rest of the day off?”

She smiles. Tony gets the oddest impression it’s a rare thing. “Merry Christmas, Tony.”

The moment she’s gone, he dives for his tablet. It’s a lot sleeker and more technologically advanced than what he’s got in his world. In fact, it kind of looks like something he’s got in planning stages right now. He flips it over to see SI’s symbol adorning the back. That would explain it he supposes. It’s his idea put into development. He flips it back over and powers it up.

He starts with SI. There’s a wealth of information on what happened four years ago when Howard and Maria Stark. He reads headline after headline: “Prodigal Son Comes Home,” “Obadiah Stane Arrested for Murder,” “Tony Stark Heads Stark Industries.” He’s more hesitant to search for Steve but he does.

To his immense surprise, there’s just as much information about Steve as there is about SI. Steve, it seems, didn’t quit playing football. He’d been recruited right out of college to play for the New York Giants and never left. It doesn’t seem right. Surely, _someone _must have seen how miserable Steve was playing football but when he turns on his TV, there’s Steve giving an interview with Jimmy Fallon about his latest season.

Steve’s smiling but he looks absolutely dead behind his eyes. It’s clear that he holds no love for the sport no matter what he says.

“Oh _Steve_,” Tony murmurs, utterly heartbroken. Steve had loved being an artist and Tony had loved that Steve had loved it.

He resolves to figure out what’s going on, not for himself but for Steve. He knows that he doesn’t deserve his husband, knows that Steve’s far too good for him, but Steve doesn’t need to be in a world where he’s this miserable.

But before he can really get down to research, his phone rings. He debates picking it up. As soon as it stops ringing though, it immediately starts again.

“What?” he snaps into the phone.

Justin Hammer’s smarmy voice comes through the speaker, cheering, “Tony!” Tony’s never much liked Justin, too sycophantic for his tastes. But he’d come with Ty and Sunset and Tony _does _like both of them so he’s stuck with Justin.

“What do you want?” he says wearily.

“Heard you got out of rehab. Good, good,” Justin simpers. “Listen, me and the gang—you know, Ty and Sunset, maybe a couple other people—are going out tonight. You’re coming with, right?”

Tony frowns despite knowing Justin can’t hear it. “Don’t you have other people to hang out with tonight?”

“No. Why would we?”

“It’s Christmas,” he says slowly.

Justin laughs like it’s the funniest thing he’s ever heard. “Such a kidder!” he says to no one in particular. “We’re better than that, Tones.”

Automatically, Tony says, “Don’t call me that.” No one calls him Tones, except Rhodey. Not even Steve calls him that.

Justin just laughs again. “This is why we’re such good friends.” Tony gags. “So listen, Ty’s got a new bar for us. Totally not our usual style but he says the waitresses are tens all the way.” And then he hangs up before Tony can tell him no.

He wants to tell him no. He does. He’s been thrust into a new world with new rules, a world without Steve in his life—and _god_ how much that hurts—and he wants to take the time to ease his way into it. But he wants to know who this Tony Stark is, this Tony Stark without his Steve, without his great love. This Tony Stark who relegated his Pepper to a mere assistant. This Tony Stark who’s in and out of rehab. He wants to adjust to a life without Steve but he wants to know who he’s become _more_.

* * *

Maybe it’s because he’s thrown off balance that he sees it this time. Maybe it’s because there’s no Steve to be a buffer here. But he sees it now and he wonders how he could have ever missed it.

How could he have missed Sunset’s cattiness? “I love your dress!” she gushes to a girl at the bar, who glows with a compliment from _the _Sunset Bain, and then promptly turns to Tony to tell him how ugly she really thinks the dress is, no matter if the girl can hear it or not.

How could he have missed Justin’s lechery? Justin leers and touches and grabs for what isn’t his and the waitresses shy away but it doesn’t stop him. Why would it? He’s rich. They should be grateful they’re getting attention from him at all. Or, at least, that’s what he sulkily tells Tony after the owner comes to tell him to either sit his ass down or get thrown out.

But worst of all, how could he have missed Ty’s…everything? How could he miss Ty putting drink after drink in his hand? How did he miss those dark blue eyes watching him hungrily? He feels…slimy every time Ty’s eyes linger on him.

It’s then that he realizes—Steve’s not the one holding him back. These three are. He’d be willing to bet just about every last penny that he has that they’re the reason he’s spent so much time in rehab.

“I can’t do this,” he says suddenly and stands.

“What?” Ty says and stands with him.

Tony takes two steps away from them. “I can’t—I don’t—" He stops. “I’m going home,” he says firmly. And he is. He’s going to find that bartender—because it _has _to be him who put him here—if it’s the only thing he does this Christmas.

Ty tries to walk with him but Tony backpedals away quickly. “I can get back on my own,” he assures them.

He’s not entirely certain about the last part but he’s far more certain that he doesn’t want Ty anywhere near him when they’re on their own. He doesn’t know if Ty would actually try anything. He hopes not. Judging by that hot gaze though, he’s pretty sure that he would.

He turns and starts to make his way out of the bar but stops almost immediately. It can’t really be, can it? There’s no way that Ty actually picked this bar, this one out of the thousands in New York. But there’s no denying that raven black hair and flashing green eyes. He gets closer to the bar, hears Ty shouting after him that he’s an alcoholic, which is certainly true in this universe. He’s got no intention of buying a drink though.

“I don’t know what you are,” Tony snaps, “but you had no right to do this to me.”

Loki sees him approach and smiles smugly. “What do you think?” he asks, not even bothering to deny it.

Tony sneers at him. He’s sure that there are universes out there where he never even meets Steve and does perfectly fine. But he lives in _his _universe and in his universe, he has Steve and the truth of the matter is—he doesn’t want anything else. Sure they fight but he loves Steve dearly, certainly more than he loves anything else. He thinks that, if he were to be rid of the poisonous influence Ty and company have become, he’d probably be a lot happier, a lot more content. Steve should have been enough for him and he doesn’t know why it took him being thrown into another world for him to see it.

“I hate it,” he says flatly. “Send me back.”

Loki nods absently. “You’ve made your decision, then?”

Tony’s nod is a lot more decisive. Loki holds up his fingers and snaps them. 

* * *

Tony doesn’t even wake up. One moment, he’s in the bar talking to Loki and the next, he’s standing outside his apartment. He goes to unlock the front door but it doesn’t click when he turns the lock. It isn’t locked. Cold fear sluices through him. This isn’t like when Tony was growing up; he doesn’t live in a great section of town anymore. But he has to know what happened so he pushes the door open.

“Steve?” he calls softly.

The lights are still on. The ornament is still broken on the floor. The only thing that’s changed is the absence of Steve’s jacket from the hook by the door and his keys from the bowl in the kitchen. He tries to call his husband but immediately hears the phone ringing from the bedroom so he hangs up. Steve didn’t even take his phone. He must have left in a hurry.

Tony’s pretty sure he knows where Steve went.

Or, at least, he hopes. It would be pretty shitty for him to come back after this whole thing only to realize that Steve’s gone out to Sam or Bucky’s tonight instead of out looking for him.

Best he can do right now is wait. He takes another look at the broken ornament. It’s not so bad as he’d first thought. There’s a lot of pieces but none of them are little and they’re all pretty straight cracks. With a little bit of superglue, he’s pretty sure he could fix it enough so it doesn’t even look broken. He sits down to start repairs, ending up so engrossed in his work that he doesn’t even hear the front door open, just that it closes. Instantly, he looks up.

Steve looks utterly wrecked. Red-rimmed eyes, hair so tangled it looks like a bird’s been nesting in it, the whole works. He’s gaping open-mouthed at Tony working on the ornament.

“Hello,” Tony says quietly.

Steve abruptly shuts his mouth and runs his fingers through his hair, messing it up more. “You came back,” he says hoarsely.

Tony quirks his head in confusion. “Why wouldn’t I?” he asks honestly. Yeah, he’d mused to Loki about whether they’d moved too quickly but he’d never once entertained the thought of not coming back.

Steve huffs out a laugh but it comes out entirely unamused. “Why _would _you?” he counters. He looks down at his feet and takes a deep breath. “Sweetheart, I _yelled _at you. I promised you I’d never yell at you and I did and honey, I wouldn’t blame you if—you fixed the ornament.”

The sudden subject change throws Tony off but he follows Steve’s gaze to the repaired ornament. He feels a small glow of pride as he looks at it. He knows he’s detail-oriented, that he’s got steady hands but this—this is the best work he’s ever done. The ornament looks good as new, like it had never fallen from his hand. It sits there, still sealing from the repair work, but as beautiful as it’s always been. He smiles as he looks at it and then looks back up at his husband.

“I did,” he agrees. He stands and moves to take Steve’s hands in his. They’re half-frozen. He gently rubs them to start warming them up. “Your mother made it. Of course I’d fix it.”

“But I—”

“Steve,” he says simply. Steve shuts up. He leans up on tiptoe to press a soft kiss to the corner of his husband’s mouth. “I was always going to come back.”

He’s not sure if it’s the words or the kiss that does it but Steve slumps against him, arms encircling Tony’s waist and burying his face in Tony’s neck. Tony wraps his own arms around Steve’s big shoulders, feeling him shake under him. His neck’s getting a little wet and he just knows that Steve’s crying. It’s a little terrifying. Steve always seems like this big stoic, strong type of person. It’s always Tony who’s the emotional one and, as a result, he’s never been very good at comfort but he’s going to try for Steve.

“I know we’ve had a bad couple of months,” he murmurs. “But I’m not giving up on us. We’re better than this.”

“I’m sorry,” Steve sobs into his neck. “I _promised _I wouldn’t yell.”

“Steve, baby, you can’t possibly hold yourself to that. We’ve got seventy years together. You’re bound to yell at least once.”

“You thought I was going to hit you.”

“No,” Tony says firmly. “I never thought you would hit me.”

“Honey, you _flinched_.”

Tony hesitates. “Yeah, I did,” he says reluctantly. “But that wasn’t because of you.”

“It was because I reminded you of Howard,” Steve says dully, knowing Tony so well. “That isn’t any better.”

“It’s not like I’ve been perfect! God, Steve, the things that Ty and Sunset would say about you and they wouldn’t listen when I told them to stop so I just stopped telling them and I shouldn’t have. I shouldn’t have let them talk. I should’ve shut them up.” He stops, realizing that Steve’s gone tense against him.

“But I’m done listening to them,” he continues quieter.

“You don’t have to ditch your friends just because of me,” Steve says, pulling back to look at him.

“They’re not my friends. They never were. I gave them passes because we grew up together but they’re as toxic as Howard was and I’m done with it.” He presses his face into Steve’s chest. “I don’t want to be around people who don’t like you,” he sniffles, starting to feel a little emotional himself. He pities the Tony Starks who don’t have a Steve in their life. Steve’s the best thing that’s ever happened to him, even if these last few months have been kind of bad.

He can hear the hesitancy in Steve’s voice when he asks, “Am I as toxic as Howard was?”

Tony shakes his head emphatically. “You’re so _good_. I don’t know what I did to deserve you but I’m so glad I did it.”

“I yelled,” Steve reminds him again.

“Yeah, you did. But, Steve, it’s the first time in four years you yelled at me. You know how long it took Rhodey to snap? Three days. Steve, honey, baby, we can work through this. I know we can. Come on, it’s Christmas. Isn’t this supposed to be about new beginnings and shit?”

Steve laughs, a deep rumble that Tony can feel under his cheek, and he knows that they’re going to be okay. “I think that’s New Year’s.”

“They take place within the same week. We might as well just roll them into one.”

Steve pulls away entirely. “They’re not the same.”

And Tony grins because he can sense the beginnings of an argument. But it’s okay because they’re going to get through this one and the next and the one after that. But first—

He darts back in and presses a lingering kiss to Steve’s lips. “I love you,” he says, leaning back just far enough to feather the words across his husband’s mouth.

Steve beams and kisses him again. “I love you more.”

“Well, I love you 3000 so there,” Tony says childishly and dances away when Steve tries to grab for him.

“Put on a Christmas movie,” Steve tells him, “and if you insist on _Die Hard_, then fine, and let’s finish the tree and then, Mr. Stark-Rogers—” He pauses and drags a heated gaze down Tony’s body. Tony thinks of how Ty had stared at him and how dirty he’d felt afterward. This is nothing like that. This sends shivers up his spine and makes him squirm where he stands. “Then, I want to see you put on what’s in that box you think you’re hiding under the bed.”

“_Steve!_” Tony squeals. “That was supposed to be a present!”

Steve looks entirely unrepentant and frankly rather smug. “Should’ve picked a better hiding place then.”

Tony picks up one of the popcorn strands and throws it at him. Steve catches it easily, tosses it aside, and then tackles him to the couch. He runs his nose along the length of Tony’s, hands fitting to the sides of Tony’s hips.

“I love you,” Steve murmurs, placing tiny kisses along his jawline. “I love you so fucking much. I’m going to spend the rest of my life proving that to you and it’ll be the best thing I’ve ever done.”

Tony hums and loops his arms around Steve’s neck. He closes his eyes, relaxes his head back into the throw pillows, and lets Steve litter kisses across his throat and what little bit of his shoulders he can reach before his shirt stops him.

“Tree,” Steve says finally, regretfully, and rolls off the couch.

“Or, and hear me out here, we could not and just go straight to bed,” Tony says, stretching. God, he’s so fucking happy. He didn’t know that just getting rid of the trash in his life could make him this happy.

Steve’s eyes catch on where his shirt rides up but he still shakes his head. “Tree and then—”

Tony hops up. He presses one last kiss to Steve’s lips and agrees, “And then.”

**Author's Note:**

> * * *
> 
> Achievements earned as part of the Holiday Movie Challenge 2019. Click [here](https://heamarvel.tumblr.com/holiday) for more info!
> 
> * * *


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